Monday, October 03, 2011

Religious Freedom And the Leftist Media's View

Canada's government wants to establish a "Religious Freedom Office" And the leftist liberal CBC reported on it today. Let me walk you through the landmine of their comments and bias. Count the barbs:

1. Foregin Affairs Minister John Baird is hosting "special closed-door consultations" this week they write. Nice to know, but surely you don't expect these meetings to be public do you?
2. Then: "questions swirl over its purpose and value". Nicely written to imply this whole thing is just fraught with problems.
3. Then: "Prepared remarks" -- well, they should be. Don't point it out as if to prepare them in advance is a sin.
4. Then: "little concrete information was released despite inquiries from CBC News." Surprise. Maybe it's because the government does not trust the 'independent CBC reporters' to report things accurately, or maybe it's just that the government was not yet ready to reveal what has been the result of the minister's "engaging prominent individuals in its development".
5. The CBC points out that a U.S. model that may be followed here in Canada was passed some time ago which gave "the government the option of imposing economic sanctions on nations that support religious persecution." They point out some like Madeline Albright said it would create a "hierarchy of human rights", i.e. religious freedom above some other freedoms.
6. CBC says Albright's State Department said the bill was "nothing more than a sop to the Christian right and was designed to promote Christianity worldwide." Thank you Miss Albright (I never did like you). The CBC could identify easily with those feelings as it appears to many that they're so anti-Christian preferring to make "homosexual freedom" the kingpin in any hierarchy of freedoms that may exist.

The CBC quotes several who say the U.S. is warning us to make this office "multi-faith" and not just representative of one or two chosen faiths. A Trinity Western University professor believes it is a mistake for Canada to focus on the problem of a Muslim being forbidden to change faiths since that is an intricate part of Islam. (How convenient for Islam?) Germany however will focus on just that.

But just to "track cases of religious persecution and act as a resource to government policymakers" is a total waste of time in my opinion for the cost involved. The office must have more teeth than that and the Conservative Government wants to give it just that even though some believe it is entering "an international policy minefield".

7. CBC is quick to quote Arvind Sharma from McGill who argues that "the very concept of religious freedom has become an excuse used by proselytizing religions, particularly Christianity, to convert people." And he actually says that was the clear goal of the U.S. model from the start." What garbage the CBC likes to present us with.

8. Then more quotes from Sharma re. his fears of Christian missions, seeing this as a right to proselytize.

9. Now the clincher from Sharma as quoted by the CBC: "I agree that the right to change one's religion is a part of religious freedom but I don't agree that my right to change my right to change my religion is symmetrical with somebody else's right to ask me to change my religion." [please decipher this for us and let us know what you think he means; I can't be bothered; maybe he said it in French coming from McGill and it lost something in the translation]

10. CBC cites Sharma cited several examples where aid groups have tied their assistance to religious conversion, for example in Indonesia during the Tsunami, or in Iraq during the Gulf War, but no real examples or the sources of agencies who did that were mentioned.

11. What Sharma is right about is that the "Western promotion of religious freedom has actually led to a backlash in several countries." Correct, but does that make it right and should we just throw up our hands and say, okay, we won't try and push for religious freedom? I don't think so.

12. And finally, the CBC brings us Canada's socialist leftist Opposition (read NDP) politicians' views who supposedly "share Sharma's skepticism about the value of the office" and to boot they accuse the Conservatives of being "secretive" in all this. Just because they didn't share it with you, doesn't make their action secretive per se.

There you have it and below is the link to the CBC article if you really want to read it. The matter for me remains simple: There is too religious persecution in the world and it needs to be addressed. Until the CBC, the NDP, the socialists, and the leftists of our society come up with a better way to do it and support it wholeheartedly, they need to stop criticizing what is being attempted.

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